1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic still camera with a printer section for making a hard copy of an electronic image that is recorded as image data in a memory through the electronic still camera.
2. Background Arts
Electronic still cameras have recently been widely used that form an optical image of a subject on an image sensor through a taking lens, to convert the optical image into an electric signal, and record it as electronic image data in a memory. Some of the electronic still cameras are provided with an electronic viewfinder that displays moving images of the subject in the photographic field of the taking lens based on the electric signals from the image sensor. The electronic viewfinder is mostly made of an LCD panel.
It is also known in the art to incorporate a printer into the electronic still camera, for making a hard copy of the photographed image instantly on the basis of the image data. An example of electronic still camera with a printer section is one described in PCT/JP99/01918, wherein the printer section makes a hard copy of an image by exposing an instant film sheet through a linear optical printing head that is driven in accordance with image data of the image read out from a memory. The instant film sheet is processed by its own processing fluid that is automatically spread on the instant film sheet while it is squeezing out of the camera through a pair of film processing rollers in the same way as in a conventional instant camera.
Although the electronic still camera of this prior art makes it possible to get a hard copy of the photographed image with ease without bothering portability of the camera, since the printer section consumes a lot of electric power, the power source batteries run down in a shorter time compared to those electronic still cameras with no printer section. When the power source batteries have ran down, it is impossible to use a camera section of the electronic still camera of this prior art.